What you are worth

I'm leaving for home tomorrow (back to London). Im not to happy about it as I have a project in mind here in Harbin that I wish to return for. But I have a lot to be getting on with, which includes trying to earn some money in the business of photography.

You see, it is not easy valuing yourself when others value their chosen pathway over yours. I am relating this to myself because I experienced a situation where someone used my work without permissions to promote their own business venture. Now they claimed ignorance to the whole copyrights issue which I would normally be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on if they were not a writer that publishes and protects their own work regularly. However, it was the next move which got me rather angry; they said they felt it was 'petty' to bring the issue up. They are paying my request sum for usage, but only to avoid any bad feeling (i.e. not because they made an error, sorry for this, how much do we owe you for your work?)

It was partly my own fault really, I did a favour for someone who knew someone and did a shoot stupidly cheap (why? because at that time I lacked the confidence to ask for what my time and skills were worth) and then did not type up a contract of usage believing that they would use the images for what they specified they were for. Two mistakes that even if you are just starting out you should not be making. A colleague of mine (in my other life) is just starting out in her photography business and we are working together on a shoot. I was surprised by how organised her business skills are, this is what I should have been doing for the last couple of years! Even if you do the work at a cheap rate as a favour, make sure you still give a contract breaking down what they get (i.e. the work that you actually put in including editing days) and that clearly states usage rights.

This whole episode feeds into a larger subject that is dear to my heart which is valuing the work others do regardless of your own standing in life. Understanding that without those people serving you, cleaning up the shit you throw away, packing and producing your food the system would collapse. The worth should be measured in this way, without one cannot exist the other. Consider it while you sip on your caffe latte, how many people are actually working for you to enjoy the pleasure of sitting down in a  cosy cafe listening to French music in the background while you tap away on your device? Im not trying to make anyone feel guilty, I love a good coffee shop as much as the next person but lets be honest, this is pure luxury. When you look at your whole coffee experience from start to finish, £2.20 seems rather cheap.

Being in Harbin has really highlighted this issue. There so many people here and this is a third tier Chinese city (to me it seems almost the size of London). Wherever you go there are twice as many people as are needed to do a job. I walk into a restaurant and there are five waitresses (mostly women serving) doing the job of two. But people need to work here in order to eat and while industry and technology mean we can get a machine to do the job of 20 people, what are the people going to do for money? Human labour is cheap because they have it in abundance, it needs to be cheaper than running machines because otherwise they will use the machines. An example of this is waste management. To the untrained English eye the first thing you notice is the lack of recycling and bin collections. With the huge amount of plastic being used (China is in the midst of a passionate love affair with the stuff), this was a shocking thought. What the hell are they doing with it? 
Human labour and private enterprise is what. They have no big garbage trucks coming around the houses, they have private system of collection with several parts to it. Beginning with person that goes through your household and street garbage looking for paper, plastic, cardboard to the person that takes a truckload to the recycling plants outside of town. I still have no idea about how they deal with the landfill rubbish though. 

You will hear a bang bang bang on the streets, the sound of a plastic drum being beaten with a stick. They are the recyclers. Each one has there own area and the sign tells you what they are collecting.  

Health and safety? Lets just blow it up.

China is in the midst of an economic boom the scale of which I've never seen in Europe; and just like the West, not everyone is benefiting from this. 

There appears to be the same three classes of lifestyle (top, middle, bottom) but the gap between the top and bottom rungs is unimaginable to an English mind. 

There are the new uber rich that swish around with their lapdogs and Gucci knickers trying their best to run over anyone on foot with their monster 4x4's; think Gangnam style and you are on the right track (I didn't realise the song was a piss take of the new rich and that Gangnam is a district in Seoul, Korea). There is the middle, which like the West has its own sub divisions and its own pretensions. I have the impression that these people are under an immense amount of pressure to live outside of their means and to spend their money on luxury items that will show their status. Sound familiar so far?

The bottom lifestyle class is where the differences are very apparent. There are unemployment benefits… sort of. How much and how difficult it is to get depends on the province in which you live and if you have been working in the last 12 months. What is very clear though, is that the benefits are enough to stop you from starving to death for a very short period of time until you find employment; they will not pay your rent, your Sky TV subscription or have enough left over to pay your mobile phone bills. It is always preferable to undertake any work; in fact it is essential.

The street cleaners are not ashamed of their work; there is an army of them employed by the government to do this job (and another army privately employed for when there is not enough of the government supplied workers). Shovelling winter snow and ice in temperatures down to -30 and then when it thaws cleaning the detritus of the masses would be unthinkable in the UK. Ok it gets warmer here in the summer but will get a whole lot worse in terms of stink. Stopping for a minute to smile and laugh while a ridiculous looking lǎowài (foreigner) wants to take a picture of you going about your daily tasks is also just as unlikely.

   

Yesterday was the end of the spring holiday (Chinese new year) and they finished it in true Chinese style; loud, spectacular and very messy. The more money you have, the bigger your box of explosives. Many street corners had firework stands (complete with large handy fire extinguishers) which were maned by cheery looking fellas doing brisk business for the whole of the two week holiday period. 

It began at sundown and went on for around 5 hours over the whole city and was what I imagine a war breaking out sounds like, pure anarchy. People were wondering into the middle of a main street, placing a box of explosives on the floor, lighting it and then walking casually away. In the area where we are staying, they have a large public square. Public areas are very important here as people do not have gardens (it is an area full of tower blocks). Everyone contributes their bombs to the display. Children with bangers exploding them in mounds of snow next to 30 women dancing in snowsuits, no one bats an eyelid. 

People carefully lay out strips of bangers 5 meters long with a box of rockets at the end next to a watching group of men who are busy chatting, smoking and spitting.

The nice thing about it is that none of this relied on government (= taxpayers) funded organized displays. Everyone contributed their box into the display, everyone cooperated with each other in the organization and no one was injured. This particular display went on for about 1 hour and a half.

This morning at around 7am the street cleaners were out in force, by 10am it was as if nothing had happened. The only clue is the haze left in the windless air from the smoke, everyone is back to work, the holiday is over and the evil spirits have been frightened away for sure.